Island of Ghosts (7 page)

So we were able to commit ourselves to the gods before embarking. We washed our clothing, groomed our horses, and set up some steam tents to clean ourselves properly. Then we assembled at noon to sacrifice to Marha and read the omens for the voyage. The sacrifice, of three horses, went well, and the omens were, on the whole, encouraging. Each of our companies had its own diviner, who knew how to read the patterns made by the willow rods, marked black with charcoal and white with chalk, that we use to discover the will of the gods and to foretell the future. Gatalas’ diviner foretold life and good fortune for the dragon across the sea, but warned of danger from lies and from fire; he promised the company glory in war—which they received with a loud yell of pleasure—but warned the commander to beware of deceit, and foretold that he would die in battle. Arshak’s diviner was less skillful. His company was indeed promised good fortune, but also disaster. The message for Arshak himself was equally confused: danger in lies, danger in darkness, life and death appearing equally balanced. Arshak received this prophecy with a smile. “I will die when it is fated,” he said, “but I trust I will not die unavenged.”

For my troop, the omens promised victory, which pleased them very much. But I myself had a divination as confused as Arshak’s, and rather grimmer: danger from lies, battle, death by drowning, death by fire, and victory.

“What does that mean?” Arshak asked Kasagos, my diviner. “You’ve killed Ariantes twice there, and had him win a victory afterward. You Roxalani can’t read the rods properly.” (I had five squadrons of men from the Roxalanic tribe in my company, and the men in the other companies sometimes jeered at them. The rest of our army were all men from the tribe of the Iazyges, as I am myself. The Roxalani are just as much Sarmatians as the Iazyges, but are a less ancient tribe, and have a slightly different history.)

I thought Arshak had no business scoffing at Kasagos for making a confused prophecy, since his own diviner had produced an equally puzzling one. “Perhaps I will be wounded winning the victory, and die by either water or fire afterward,” I suggested. A horrible thought occurred to me: that I would be wounded by a defeated enemy, drown, and when my body was washed ashore, some Romans would treat it with their own funeral customs and burn it. But I kept the thought to myself. Death by water is a wretched fate, and to burn the body, so my people believe, is to destroy the soul. The bare suggestion of such a fate would upset my men.

Kasagos frowned at the rods. “The sign for victory comes
after
the two deaths. I think, my prince, that the deaths must be read as warnings. If you avoid death by water and fire, you will win a victory.”

“In other words, don’t go swimming, and be careful when you light a fire,” said Arshak, grinning. “Good advice at any time, but you hardly need the divining rods to tell you that.”

Still, the omens had promised good fortune to every company, and when we followed the ceremony with a feast (courtesy of the procurator of the British fleet), the men were inclined to look on the bright side, especially after the wine started flowing. There was no resistance next day when the time came to board the ships.

But even without resistance, it was hard work. Fifteen hundred men and nearly four times that number of horses had to be loaded onto transports. The transports were larger, sturdier, and slower ships than the fast bireme, but only three of them were suitable for carrying more than a handful of horses at a time. The horses had all been on boats before, to cross the Danube—but many still had to be blindfolded to get them aboard, and their owners had to go with them to soothe them on the voyage and prevent them from harming themselves when the ships rolled. Since most of the men had three horses and we also had extra horses for the wagons, it meant that some men had to make two trips to cope with all the animals. Then, of course, there were questions of precedence. Put two Sarmatian nobles in front of a gate and they’ll spend all day arguing over who goes through first—and we had fifteen hundred Sarmatian nobles in front of three horse transports. It helped that our companies had had their order of march established long ago. Arshak’s company was called the second dragon, because his dragon standard followed second behind that of the king; Gatalas led the fourth dragon, and I commanded the sixth: Arshak’s company thus went first, Gatalas’second, and mine last. But each commander needed to stand on the dock the whole time his dragon was embarking, to give each squadron, and each man in the squadron, his proper place.

Then there was a problem with the wagons: the Roman sailors saw no reason to transport these at all. Why couldn’t we live in tents and barracks, like their own soldiers? they asked. I had to insist and threaten, coax and cajole them about it for some time, and when they at last gave in, it was as much from exasperation with the wagons clogging the shipyard where they were as from any desire to help us shift them.

Then there were more problems, with supplies.

My fellow princes remained proudly aloof from the Romans and left all the insisting and cajoling to me. I became, as I’d feared, the reasonable one, the one the Romans could work with. The procurator Natalis turned to me to say which troops went when, and asked my advice about how to secure the wagons or restrain nervous horses. I disliked the position, but could not shrug it off, and the more I cooperated, the more they turned to me.

Halfway through the first day of the transportation, Natalis came down to the ships while they were being loaded, carrying a set of wax tablets.

“There you are, Ariantes,” he said, and offered me the tablets. “I’m trying to get a week’s supplies for your people together for you in Dubris, and I’ve drawn up a list of what we think you might need. Can you just look it over and correct it if there’s anything you don’t need?”

I stared at the tablets, not touching them. “I cannot read,” I told him.

“Oh,” he said, pulling the tablets back. “No, of course you can’t. I don’t have time to go over them with you. I’ll find you a scribe.” And he went back to his headquarters.

About an hour later, a man of about forty, small, dark, and weary, trotted up with the tablets. “You are Lord Ariantes?” he asked me, and when I nodded, he went on, “I am Eukairios, a slave in the office of the procurator. Lord Valerius Natalis sends me to you. He said you needed a scribe.”

I have never forgotten the shock of that afternoon. Eukairios was very good at his work. We went over the list of supplies, and it was all wrong: it contained vast amounts of wheat, which we weren’t used to, and no cheese or dried meat, which we were. There was no wood to mend the wagons, should one break; there was the wrong kind of horse fodder; there was no felt to patch the awnings and not enough leather to bind them—it was a useless list altogether. And Eukairios knew exactly what to do to put it all right. All the afternoon it went on, me saying, “What we need is . . .” and Eukairios answering, “That would take us over budget, Lord Ariantes, but what we could do . . .” and me saying, “Can you really do that?”

Letters. “Ariantes, commander of the sixth numerus of Sarmatian cavalry, to Minucius Habitus, procurator of the imperial
saltus
, greetings. My lord, we require a hundred barrels of salt beef from the imperial estates to be shipped to Dubris under authority of the procurator Lord Valerius Natalis . . .” “Ariantes . . . to Junius Coroticus, shipping agent, greetings. The procurator Valerius Natalis requests that you provide a ship to the port of Durobrivae of the Iceni to transport a hundred barrels of salt beef . . .” “Ariantes . . . to Marcius Modestus, head of the fleet workshops in Dubris, greetings. The procurator authorizes you to allot us a hundredweight of oak staves and two hundredweight of beechwood planking . . .”

“And now, Lord Ariantes,” Eukairios would say, “you put your mark
there
, and I write ‘Unlettered’
here
, and we seal it
thus
, and we can send it off first thing tomorrow.” Take a thin leaf of shaved beechwood, mark it with ink, fold it and seal it with wax, put it on a dispatch vessel—and men a hundred miles away who’d never heard of Sarmatians would roll barrels of salt beef onto a ship that had appeared to move them, take them to a warehouse in Dubris that was expecting them, and have them stacked waiting for us when we appeared. Letters are wonderful things.

After that, Eukairios was assigned to me every day until I left Bononia myself, on the last transport. To say I found him useful is as misleading as it is true. I had carefully planned and prepared troop movements in the past—I’d organized raids and gathered the men of my dragon to fight the war. But always I’d relied on those I knew, drawn on my own resources and those of my dependants, and done without records. The freedom of the pen, which can run backward in time to take account and forward to draw up a budget, which can speak directly to unknown persons far away, was intoxicating. It terrified me that I liked it so much, that, within two days, I was waiting impatiently for Eukairios to arrive in the morning, depending on him to come so I could do my own work. It infuriated me that I should depend on a Roman slave, and I looked forward to leaving him and Bononia behind. But I dreaded being left voiceless, while around me the letters flew and Romans spoke to Romans about my people, and we stood like mute and bewildered children in an alien world.

In the end I set sail from Bononia with Eukairios—and with Valerius Natalis, and with Flavius Facilis. Eukairios came because we were finishing some accounts; Natalis, because he was returning to his preferred base at Dubris—but Facilis was an unpleasant surprise. We had seen very little of him once the crossing began, and I’d thought that he’d given up his charge of us and was preparing to return with his legionaries to Aquincum. I found that instead he’d been writing to the legate Priscus, offering his services as an expert on Sarmatians. I could not ask him why. I suspected, even then, that it was not because he had any straightforward plan for revenge, but because he felt his business with us was unfinished. He meant to finish it and make sure we would not forget him, as I had wished to do. I suppose, too, he had nothing waiting for him in Aquincum except regrets and painful memories: why shouldn’t he start a new life in Britain? At any rate, Priscus had accepted him and had offered to appoint him camp prefect of some fortress in the North where he could keep an eye on us. I was not happy at Facilis coming—he would have provoked my men into mutiny twice, if he’d had his way—and I was still more unhappy that Priscus thought we needed him. But because I could do nothing about it, I avoided the man. I had eight horses on the transport, and I went into the hold with them instead of onto the deck with the Romans—but, of course, I took Eukairios and the accounts with me.

When we were three hours out from Bononia, however, Natalis sent a slave to invite me to have a drink with him. The horses were all accustomed to the ship by then, so I agreed to leave them—I’d relied heavily on the procurator’s authority in Bononia and I couldn’t afford to offend him. I told Eukairios to come up on deck as well, and to bring the accounts, since we’d finished them. (I was not seasick on that voyage. The transport bucked and rolled far less than the bireme had, and the sea was calmer that day.)

Natalis was in the covered cabin by the sternpost of the transport, sitting in a carved chair and looking out at the ship’s wake. He gave me his most benevolent smile, had another chair brought up for me, and offered me a cup of wine. “I thought we might have a drink together to celebrate a job well done,” he said. “I’ve been grateful for your help, Ariantes.”

“We have been grateful for yours, Valerius Natalis,” I returned. I sipped my wine uncomfortably.

“Yes—but I was obliged by my position to help you, and you might very easily have decided to . . . cause difficulties. I believe we might have had serious trouble in Bononia, if it hadn’t been for you.”

“It was my own people who would have suffered most,” I said, just a bit too sharply.

“Oh, indeed, indeed,” Natalis agreed quickly. “But one doesn’t expect barbarians to be so reasonable—or to show such flair for administration. As a token of my gratitude, I’d like to give you a present.”

“Lord Valerius Natalis, I did not act as I have through hope of reward from any Roman.”

“I am quite sure of that, Lord Ariantes. It would be an insult to you to suppose otherwise, wouldn’t it? Nonetheless, it’s a Roman custom for senior officers, such as myself, to make gifts to those who have helped them. I am sure you could use a reliable scribe in your future career, so let me make you a present of Eukairios.”

Eukairios, who’d been standing quietly by the entrance to the cabin all this while, dropped his accounts ledger with a clatter and stared at Natalis in horror. “Lord procurator!” he gasped.

“I could not accept,” I said. “My people do not keep slaves.” I spoke quickly because I was angry with myself. I already knew that if Natalis pressed me, I’d accept. Now that I’d been offered him, I knew I wanted the scribe badly.

“Oh, you must have some slaves!” protested Natalis. “How can a gentleman manage without them? What do you do with the captives you take in all your wars, eh?”

“We do not take captives, Lord Procurator. We do not keep foreigners in our wagons, and our own people are all free, the sons and daughters of warriors. What would I do with a slave? Eukairios cannot ride a horse.” (I’d discovered this in Bononia when I asked him to take a message, and it had shocked and astonished me.) “Where would I put him?”

“I’m sure you could arrange something,” Natalis said easily.

At this, Eukairios interrupted. “Lord Procurator,” he stammered, “please, my lord, please don’t send me away from Bononia.”

“Be quiet, man! Well, Ariantes? It would be a shame to waste your talents because of a lack of pen and ink.”

“But, Lord Procurator . . .” begged Eukairios.

“I said, be quiet!” Natalis snapped.

Eukairios staggered over to Natalis and dropped to his knees, reaching out a hand to his master. “Please, my lord, I beg you, my lord, please don’t—”